Issues Confronting Our Clients

Much of what I do entails the representation of people seriously injured or killed as a result of medical mistakes. Certain medical mistakes are so clearly negligent that Medicare and other insurance carriers refuse to make payments to medical providers for treatment necessitated by these mistakes. In fact, there is a list of 28 “never events” as defined by the National Quality Forum. The full list of these 28 “never events” are attached in the PDF below:

Many of you are small business owners and many of those small businesses are sole proprietorships. I am sure you realize that it is important to incorporate your sole proprietorship, or business, to protect you and your family from personal liability. Pennsylvania Law shields officers from corporate liability absent a piercing of the corporate veil or application of a participation theory. See First Realvest, Inc. v. Avery Builders, Inc., 600 A.2d 601 at 603 (1991). However, confusion regarding liability is common in sole proprietorships; often times, sole proprietors will sign contracts in their own names. In such situations, another party alleging a breach of contract may attempt to pierce the corporate veil by arguing that the contract or agreement was entered into by the individual who then tries to shift liability to the sole proprietorship. In order to limit the appearance of impropriety, which could cause the piercing of the corporate veil, the sole proprietor must be especially careful to clearly limit their personal liability on the face of a contract or document.  Click the link below to read the whole article.

In a disturbing new trend, insurance company lawyers handling compulsory arbitration and Rule 1311.1 cases have adopted a strategy of taking the “fact” deposition of treating physicians and chiropractors. They rely on Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 4003.6 as the authority which permits them to do so. Rule 4003.6, entitled “Discovery of Treating Physician,”  Click link below to read full article.